Do You Need Heavy Squats To Build Huge Legs?

You don’t need a 405lbs squat to build big legs. You can ”get away” with a much lower number. Truth be told, most recreational bodybuilder/gym rats/lifters don’t have to go beyond 350lbs. Past that point, you enter The Land of Diminishing Returns as far as leg hypertrophy is concerned. Unless you are a powerlifter, there’s no need to focus only on the lifted weight. You could try the following tips to keep progressing without technically lifting more weight.

1.Make the squat harder without lifting more weight

There are many ways to make the squat harder without adding more weight to the barbell. You can, for example, try to improve your squat depth. Deep squats are harder and force you to use less weight. If you can full squat 350lbs for 10 reps, considers yourself a strong motherfucker.

You can also try squat variations such as the pause squat. The pause squat is harder because there is no stretch reflex at the bottom. As a result, you lift less weight while becoming stronger and stronger.

Alternatively, you could focus on getting more reps with the same weight. Obviously, if you go from a 350×1 squat to a 350×20 squat, you’ve gotten stronger.

2.The legs love volume and grow well on high rep schemes

The legs grow well on high rep schemes (10-15 reps) because they contain a lot of endurance fibers stimulated through repetitions. For that very reason, many people include back-off sets as part of their leg routines. A back-off set usually consists of at least 8 reps and is performed with less weight than the work sets.